"Perhaps the reason lies in the death of the spy Lord Second…" Surprisingly it was Minato who stood up for Haruto now.
"The death? You mean the spy's body generating a tree bark like shell around him upon his death?"
"Exactly Lord Second… When I was Hokage, a disciple of Lord Third, Orochimaru, was involved in Human Experimentation while working alongside Danzo in his secret organisation called ROOT which is a hidden branch of the ANBU."
"What were they researching?" Tobirama asked keenly.
"They were trying to resurrect the Wood Release techniques of Lord First." Minato responded immediately.
"And was this knowledge made public?" Tobirama asked again.
"Not exactly, Lord Danzo's name was kept out of it since Orochimaru took the fall for the experiments and the nature of the experiments were kept hidden. But I suspect Haruto has somehow learnt of these experiments and doesn't want Danzo to succeed in getting his hands on anything related to Wood Release."
"Hmmm… that could be the case… but that begs the question, why would someone who is related to wood release come after Haruto? Clearly he's connected to something else in his past that is dangerous… or why would they send someone to assassinate him?"
"Perhaps he's betrayed the organisation in support of the village and so they don't want him to be alive anymore?" Hashirama offered.
Tobirama frowned. "Possible… but I still believe there's something we don't know about the boy… he seems like he has a purpose that's difficult to understand."
"If Haruto-kun's fight is against Danzo, I wholeheartedly support the boy." Kushina suddenly said, her eyes gleaming with anger.
Everyone looked at her in surprise but they also understood where she was coming from, she was simply angry at someone who had destroyed her home, her family and her childhood.
Izuna surprisingly understood her best. "Yes. Just like I would do anything for the downfall of the Senju."
Hashirama chuckled softly but said nothing else since he supported Kushina fully, after all, if there was such a traitorous man in the village, it only made sense to get rid of him from the root.
Suddenly however, Kushina panicked, "Haruto's losing a lot of blood! Will he be alright?!?!?!?"
Minato calmly placed his hand on Kushina's shoulder to calm her down before explaining, "Kakashi should be nearby. He should've heard the explosion and is probably already on his way."
***
BBBBBBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Kakashi looked at the explosive mushroom cloud in the distance and panicked.
'Haruto-kun…'
'Rin… Obito… will I not be able to save someone that relies on me once again?'
Kakashi picked up his pace, pushing lightning chakra into his limbs to increase his speed without bounds. He knew there would be much to pay later regarding the overuse of chakra circulation in his limbs to increase his speed, but he didn't care right now.
All he could think of was if he was too late.
Eventually, Kakashi skidded to a stop in front of the burning building and used his sharingan to track for any living targets inside the billowing smoke.
'Someone's still alive!'
Kakashi dove in relentlessly, not caring about the burns he would receive or the smoke he would inhale, everyone in the village was used to inhaling the Hokage's second hand smoke after all, his sharingan simply locked on the rapidly diminishing life that was still fighting to live in the fire.
It took moving a few pieces of debris from the collapsed roof before he got to the weakened soul resting comfortably with a piece of rebar stabbed through his stomach.
Kakashi quickly pulled the piece of rebar out of Haruto's body and applied basic medical ninjutsu to stop the flow of blood, before rushing back out of the fire.
'Stay alive!'
'Stay alive!'
'Stay alive!'
***
Haruto blinked his eyes in confusion.
'An unfamiliar ceiling.'
'You're finally awake Haruto!!! I was so worried!!!'
Haruto was confused for a moment, wondering what had just happened before his last few memories rushed into his mind.
'Yeah… I'm fine… just had a front seat view to a grand explosion… bet even you never saw an explosion from so up close before did you, Megumin…'
Megumin laughed, 'Kekekeke! It seems my disciple's funny bone is fine. I have a gift for you!'
'A gift!? No way!!'
'Yes!!! You completed your first mission!'
Had his body not still been faintly aching, Haruto would've gotten up and begun dancing wildly on the hospital room floor.
Suddenly there was a soft knock on his door that startled Haruto enough to make him cover up his toothy smile.
"Yes?" Haruto asked, unsure of who was outside his door.
The door opened and Haruto saw someone he recognised.
"Kakashi-san…" Haruto mumbled looking at the man tied up in bandages just like him. "Thank you for saving me."
Kakashi's eyes crinkled before he smiled and spoke gently, "I'm just happy you're alright… it was my fault after all that I left you alone there. Did someone come after you once I left?"
Haruto nodded and explained the excuse he'd prepared on the spot, "I don't know if he was a shinobi or not, but he tried to kill me, I got the jump on him by hiding under the bed and then igniting the explosive tags and stuffing them into his mouth, forcing him to swallow it. I tried to escape, but calculated the range of the explosive tags wrongly and got caught up in the result."
"I see…" Kakashi nodded, mumbling the latter half of his sentence, "...so that's why we didn't find a body."
"By the way Kakashi-san… did you get attacked by someone else outside the house? I remember hearing fighting before noticing the intruder in my room."
Kakashi's gaze suddenly sharpened. He looked at Haruto closely for a few seconds before deciding it was alright to tell Haruto about it. While the memories of the corpse they had captured was still being read, he trusted Haruto to not have been a part of the ploy that was sprung on him since the kid had nearly lost his life.
"...it was an Uchiha…"
"An Uchiha?!" Haruto's eyes widened in shock at the implication. 'Obito!? What the heck is even going on anymore!?'
Kakashi only felt Haruto's surprise was normal since there didn't seem to be any reason for an Uchiha to attack Haruto based on his background.
Eventually Haruto just shook his head.
"Are you alright, Kakashi-san?" Haruto asked politely.
"I'm fine. You did well Haruto-kun. As compensation, since your house was damaged during a village operation, the village will compensate you for the repairs."
"Thank you Kakashi-san."
"Don't thank me. Thank Hokage-sama."
"Then, please convey my thanks to him."
"Noted."
"By the way Kakashi-san… how do you train fire nature Chakra?"
Kakashi's gaze sharpened once again.
"Fire nature chakra?"
Haruto nodded, "I purchased Chakra paper a few days ago… and learnt that my chakra nature is fire… I hadn't paid much attention then, since I didn't really want to get stronger or pursue strength… but now… I realise that I need to get stronger to be able to save myself if I'm in another situation like this again."
Kakashi nodded and sighed.
"The training is simple for the beginning phase, take a leaf and place it between your palms before using your chakra to burn it. I'll give you the details later once you get out of the hospital. Is that alright?"
"That's fine Kakashi-san… thank you… truly."
Kakashi's eyes crinkled up as he nodded, "No problem."
***
The doors to the Hokage office slammed open causing Hiruzen to suddenly have to put away his crystal ball which he was using to peek at the bathhouse.
"Danzo? Why're you here?"
"You know it Hiruzen! It's the Uchiha. They're getting bolder! Assassinating one of the civilian staff members in broad daylight! This can't get any worse!"
Hiruzen frowned, "Is that so…"
"Yes! Give me the right to immediately conduct a search through the Uchiha compound and I'll find that traitor who conducted the attack last night!"
"Danzo… I've heard something else… I heard from the I.T department that it was a Kusagakure Shinobi that tried to entice the civilian staff into committing espionage!! I thought the ROOT was keeping an eye on Kusagakure? How did he get past your fine net?"
"No way! Give him to me, the I.T department must not have searched the man's memories thoroughly enough! Clearly the Uchiha enticed this rogue to work with him by hypnotising him with the evil Sharingan! They must have given him knowledge about the ROOT and let him slip past our detection. Give me permission to search the Uchiha compound Hiruzen!"
"No Danzo! Enough is enough! The tensions with the Uchiha are already high, I'm not making things worse by giving you the rights to search through their clan compound."
"Then give me the boy Hiruzen! If the Uchiha are trying to assassinate him then he must know something! Give him to the ROOT and I'll make him reveal everything he knows."
Hiruzen paused at that. He considered sending Haruto to the ROOT or even just simply reading the child's memories, but discarded the thought immediately, Kakashi was close to the child, antagonising the child would only antagonise Kakashi and push him deeper into despair.
Plus the child had just gone through a near death experience, if he really was against the village he wouldn't have risked his life to take down an enemy spy.
So Hiruzen simply shook his head, "No Danzo, I will not give the child to you."
"Hiruzen!! You'll regret this!!"
"Danzo, I am the Hokage!!!"
Danzo turned around in a huff before walking out of the room and slamming the door behind himself.
Hiruzen, growing older by the minute, sighed deeply before once again pulling out the crystal ball.
'From his file at the I.T department, it seems the civilian staffer is intelligent and is interested in research… he's a thorough Konoha shinobi with no chances of any contamination since he's never stepped outside the village or done anything suspicious before…'
'But the mystery still remains… why would the Uchiha want to kill the boy? Itachi suspects that Fugaku has the Mangekyou Sharingan… and that his eye possess an ability that has something to do with insight… just like Madara… did he see something with it that makes the boy a threat to them? Does his eye possess some sort of future viewing ability?'
'If that's the case, the boy is extremely valuable… but given his talent in the academy he should only be an extremely good researcher… Perhaps another Orochimaru… maybe he finds a way to duplicate Sharingan in the future? Or even just finds a way to strengthen the weakened Konoha so that the Uchiha can't entertain thoughts of rebellion…'
'I should go meet that civilian staffer and thank him personally for his service to the village… it will raise the morale of the I.T department and bring that civilian staffer child into my camp… and given how Kakashi risked his life to save the boy, it should even help Kakashi come out from his darkness… three birds with one stone…'
'Sometimes my own intelligence frightens me.'
And with that Hiruzen went back to looking at his crystal ball.